The Spring Garden

I love rosemary as a garden plant in addition to culinarily & this one lives in our parking strip. I don’t know the variety, but it has richer-colored flowers than the others on the property.

This also lives in our parking strip & is the variety ‘Arp’ — it makes great skewers for grilling so I coordinate my pruning with summer meals.

Here we’re looking into the front garden from the sidewalk at the northwest corner of the property — it shows the exuberance of spring & I love it.

Now we’re standing in the driveway looking towards the front path. This time of year we have lots of ambers and rust colors in the foliage.

We’re still standing in the driveway, but looking on the other side toward some of the early tulips.

Now we’ve gone up the front path, through the gate, and are looking towards the front. My neighbor & I extended the wires trained on the fence for this Trachelospermum (Star Jasmine) to add a bit more privacy between our spaces.

You might be able to make out the massive tree trunk in the previous photo — it’s a cherry that’s about 60 feet tall, and it’s slowly dying. It shouldn’t be planted roughly 10′ from either of our houses, so it’ll be a relief when it’s gone. In the meantime, I’m growing a Hydrangea anomala petiolaris ‘Miranda’ (climbing hydrangea) up it.

Just next to the Jasmine we have this little Heuchera tucked into a stone retaining wall.

Over on this shady side of the house (the north side) I’m adding this variegated Acanthus (Bear’s Breeches) in a container this year because I can’t pass up huge variegated leaves! Is this the plant that tips me over into too much variegation? We’ll see!

This is our containerized Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Steroidal Giant’ (Rice Paper Plant) and these prehistoric leaves are just getting started for the year — I hope to get a bit more height this season so that it’s more easily seen when you come through the gate.

As we venture into the back garden we reach one of this year’s projects. I’ve removed nearly everything I wanted out of this spot, including cutting down a golden cypress that was competing with a neighbor’s magnolia, and now it’s had a couple of inches of Dean Innovation’s White Lightening added (complete with dog footprints). There are some irises that I’m going to use as cut flowers and then give away, and I have a shopping list for Hortlandia to fill it in. Stay tuned!

This is one of the plants staying in that spot, a Rhamnus frangula (Buckthorn ‘Fine Line’). I love this plant, and it’s finally reached the top of the fence so it will have more presence among the plantings. It’s new foliage is pretty great.

And here’s something I already added — a Drimys lanceolata (Tasmanian Pepperberry). It’s something I’ve eyed for years wanting to make a place for it in my garden & I’m thrilled it has a home here now. Some nearby plant neighbors have burgundy foliage, so I think they’ll be nice together.

At the far end of this new planting bed I’ve got 3 Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’, which is a great, easy plant with the most wonderful flowers. They’re filled with buds right now and I hope they have a great season ahead.

These Saxifraga paniculata (Encrusted Saxifrage), all with white flowers, are part of what’s going into the new bed. I’m going to get some interesting Lace Rock from Smith Rock, Inc. and create a little mound of these and a few other rock garden plants.

I love spring bulbs and it’s always interesting to see how new ones turn out IRL vs the photo on the package. These (don’t remember the variety) looked like little marshmallows bobbing around before they opened, and I haven’t yet decided whether I like them (leaning toward a no).

These are in a container, along with many others, so I can place them where I want while they’re blooming, then tuck them away when they’re not.

Among the containers with spring blooms is this Erysimum ‘Winter Orchid’ (Wallflower), which was one of the earliest bloomers and has a punch of saturated color hard to find this time of year.

In the raised gabion bed that’s connected to the back border I keep these smallish concrete orbs that I made as a crafty project one day. They’re, of course, covered in a universe of lovely moss, and I love this time of year as they’re slowly hidden by the Dicentra formosa.

I’m becoming increasingly enchanted with the tiniest of daffodils.

There used to be a fan-shaped cedar trellis over here that I fell out of love with. So I replaced it with this narrow steel variety. I haven’t given up on cedar trellises entirely (more on that later) but plants like this fragrant Clematis (Fragrant Star Vancouver) cling better to the skinny crosshatch of this kind of trellis, and it coordinates with the rusty metal I’ve got elsewhere in the garden.

This Allium karataviense (Persian Onion) looks like it’s gone from one bloom of last year to two this year, which is exciting. I hope it slowly colonizes this whole area because I love this plant. Don’t mind the tag, once it’s committed to memory I’ll remove it.

This is a favorite daffodil: Thalia. It’s graceful, simple, and fits so easily among other plants.

The Clematis fasciculiflora is slowly climbing the arbor with its small, bell-shaped flowers. There’s a Billardiera longiflora that shares this space, and it seems to have recovered from being abruptly moved for our house project so I’m hopeful it’ll flower & fruit later this year.

And here’s one of the things growing on the other side of the arbor, an Actinidia arguta ‘Issai’ (Grape Kiwi). This was newly planted last autumn, and is showing signs of life. This is a self-fertile variety so we’ll see what happens!

This little area next to the arbor has a bird bath (that obvs needs a good clean) and most excitingly, a new Garrya elliptica (Coast Silktassel). Our neighbors finished a backyard ADU last year and there’s a large window just on the other side of the fence that looks out directly onto our back garden. The window looks in on a staircase with a landing where there’s a bathroom, so people existing the bathroom are often met by whatever’s going on in our back garden, just as we are met by whomever comes out of the bathroom. So this Garrya will eventually give us some evergreen privacy. In the meantime, I’ve attached a cedar trellis to the fence and will be growing an annual vine up it to help.

I have two roses in our garden — a David Austin variety with white/yellow blooms, and this Rosa Glauca. I couldn’t care less about the single pink flowers on this plant, but the foliage is an absolute knockout, especially when it’s just getting started. And the hips aren’t bad either.

Here’s another cedar trellis — this one from Mr. Plywood. They have a great, affordable selection of cedar trellis. This is a size upgrade from the smaller one here before. The Clematis ‘Etoile Violette’ that grows here has gotten big enough to need more room to spread out at the top of the fence, so this should help. Soon enough it’ll be completely covered in deep purple blooms.

I moved these variegated Polygonatum (Solomon’s Seal) last autumn and they don’t seem to have minded at all. I’m hopeful that with a bit more light on this side of the house they’ll be happier.

Up against the house on this south side I put my 3 blueberries — this variety is ‘Spartan’ and has massive, delicious fruit. It was in a container for a few years so we’ll see how much better it does now that it’s in the ground.

This is a NOID hellebore growing against this cobalt blue pot, which I love for how it sets off the bright green of the leaves. This is the view outside of the basement apartment kitchen window.

This is a Spirea ‘Goldflame’, or perhaps ‘Goldmound’ (I can’t remember), that has the best new foliage. It’s great in arrangements. And on this plant, which may be reverting, some leaves are half gold, half green. It’s gorgeous.

Now we’ve left our garden and we’re visiting a neighbor who I helped with their front garden design last year. It’s just been planted and I’m excited to see how it fills in this season. The stones help manage the overflow from a downspout on that side of the property (under the sidewalk).

This is another neighbor’s garden where their groundcover game is really spectacular.

And finally, this is a tree down the block that helps announce spring — it’s a giant magnolia that can been seen from blocks away. Once it starts its show, you know warmer days are ahead.